Competitiveness Impact – Global Economy - West coast debate

Competitiveness Impact – Global Economy

Suominen

2012

, Peerless and Periled, pp.2-3

The outcome reflects a fact of global governance:

there are no rival orders that would match the growth and globalization produced by the American order.

But while the American order is peerless, it is also periled. Financial instability has become more frequent, fatal, and global over the past decades, but the institutions of the American order are failing to confront it. At the same time,

as the core of the order, the United States is ailing at home and failing to lead abroad

. Even as reformed, the American order remains defenseless. This is the Achilles heel of the American order and one that jeopardizes its existence: a defective order will cease to garner support from the adherent nations.

A downfall of the American order would pull down growth and globalization in its wake, spelling disaster for all nations

. Reforms and leadership are required, but divisive power politics among nations and self-defeating Washington bickering stand in the way. This book is a road map through them.

A thriving twenty-first-century world economy is within reach, but America must reach harder than ever for it

2012

Competitiveness is not a zero-sum game, in which one country can advance only if others lose. Long-term productivity

—and, along with it, living standards—

can improve in many countries. Global competition is not a fight for a fixed pool of demand; huge needs for improving living standards are waiting to be met around the world

.

Productivity improvements in one country create new demand for goods and services that firms in other countries can pursue

. Greater productivity in, say, India can lead to higher wages and profits there, boosting demand for pharmaceuticals from New Jersey and software from Silicon Valley.

Spreading innovation and productivity improvement allows global prosperity to grow. Because the global economy is not a zero-sum game, the decline of American competitiveness is a problem not only for the U.S. The global economy will be diminished if its largest national economy is weak, ceases to be an engine of innovation, and loses its influence in shaping a fair and open global trading system

Nohria

2012

The Chinese care about China

but they are rooting for America as well. Indeed, the Brazilians, the Indians, and the majority of others

I have met outside the US

are also rallying for us. They understand that the world is interdependent and that the US economy is still too large for anyone to profit from a rapid decline in its well-being

. Americans may not realize this, but it's true:

The world wants us to be competitive

. Recently, though, I've begun to get the sense that our friends abroad cheer for America with foreboding and pessimism, the way sports fans nervously pull for a team whose lead is slimming and whose energy is fading. These outsiders recognize that the system of democratic capitalism that produced centuries of American prosperity is troubled.

Competitiveness Impact – Global Trade

US competitiveness key to sustain global free trade regime. Ashley J.

Tellis

, Senior Associate, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace,

2010

, Power shift: How the West can Adapt and Thrive in an Asian Century, http://www.gmfus.org/galleries/pdf/GMFPower20Shift20Asia20Paper_for_web200128.pdf

Third,

the United States in particular must strengthen its national economy if it wishes to thrive in the coming Asian century

. This is true of its democratic partners as well. Simply stated,

the success of the current wave of globalization,

like the one that preceded it in the 19th century,

is owed fundamentally to the existence of a hegemonic power. Since the end of the Second World War, American preponderance has underwritten many of the key components

—from the dollar as a global reserve currency to the rules of the international order to the defense of the commons—

which have made a successful open trading system possible. Should the American economy weaken inexorably over time, there is every likelihood that the current successful phase of globalization

,

although often assumed to be a permanent reality, could atrophy and eventually collapse.

Mercifully, such dangers are neither immediate nor inevitable because the U.S. economy, whatever its current troubles, is not enervated by any terminal illness. Increasing US relative position key to address new trade challenges. Leslie

Gelb

, president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations, Summer

2010

, “Fashioning a

Realistic Strategy for the Twenty-First Century,” Fletcher Forum of World Affairs, http://ui04e.moit.tufts.edu/forum/archives/pdfs/34-2pdfs/Gelb.pdf

Well, I think we know what the challenges are.

There are international economic challenges in trade and foreign investment, particularly with China

as the Chinese write their investment laws and open up their country to competition. Of course, we know that there are climate change problems, and the problems with international terrorism.

These are all very serious, but we will be in a much better position to deal with them when our economy is stronger. And that is the main way to be taken seriously

Morgan

, Professor of United States Studies, Institute of the Americas, University College London,

2011

,“The American Economy and America’s Global Power,” United States after Unipolarity, http://www2.lse.ac.uk/IDEAS/publications/reports/pdf/SR009/morgan.pdf

America’s economic strength has long underwritten its leading role in world affairs

. The buoyant tax revenues generated by economic growth fund its massive military spending, the foundation of its global hard power.

America’s economic success is also fundamental to its soft power and the promotion of its free-market values in the international economy

. Finally,

prosperity generally makes the American public more willing to support an expansive foreign policy on the world stage, whereas economic problems tend to engender popular introspection.

Ronald Reagan understood that a healthy economy was a prerequisite for American power when he became president amid conditions of runaway inflation and recession. As he put it in his memoirs, ‘In 1981, no problem the country faced was more serious than the economic crisis – not even the need to modernise our armed forces – because without a recovery, we couldn’t afford to do the things necessary to make the country strong again or make a serious effort to reduce the dangers of nuclear war. Nor could America regain confidence in itself and stand tall once again. Nothing was possible unless we made the economy sound again’.2010-07-19 18:44Читать похожую статью